American Prophesiers: These People are Insane

Perhaps I might let William Tapley, third eagle of the apocalypse and co-prophet of the end times, no less,  open the show with his own particular brand of neurosis, before we move to the main feature.






William Tapley Youtube Seatbelts essential. William Tapley has his own tag on this blog.

But it is this below that is our featured video. Is it just coincidence that it was an American that directed me to the thing? And it is here things start to get a little bizarre; if they aren't already bizarre enough.

For it was on a Japanese website, reporting on the recent explosion at the nuclear plant at Russelville Arkansas, that this particular piece of insanity was embedded.




But Mark, the uploader, is far from alone, not if the comments from his Youtube page are any yardstick. Where, if you visit, you will discover that this insanity is not an aberration, but the norm. Typically, as shown below. Includes mention of Denver Airport, I add.

Only in Ameriki Folks Only in Ameriki Fat Arses and Bad Ink

And that's the back if you're still trying to work it out.

Two more for my No Regerts post.

Bad Tattoos & Family Pics Team Jimmy Joe

Hidalgo County New Mexico Orwellian Doesn't Even Come Close

It's not often I'm stuck for words, but I'm stuck for words. But I shall try to string a few together.

This is not your typical, abusive, violent cop video by any means, it's far worse than anything of that ilk.

For what this short clip exposes, is the ever increasing mindset of the cops, a mindset, that they themselves are the law. Not upholders of law, other than of course, the law according to cops; the ones they just make up as they go along.

As you watch or read what this poor shmuck endured, never loose sight of that mindset, and accompanying attitude, that must be present in these cops and many more like them.. A mind set that says, yeah fuck! we can do this, we can do whatever we choose to do. And why can we do it? Because we're the cops, it's that simple.

But then, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. It gets much much worse, not two times, but ten times worse. And why does the situation get ten times worse? With the compliance and the collusion of the facility that carried out medical procedures, that wouldn't seem out of place in some of histories most unmentionable regimes.

As I tweeted some minutes ago, this is the must watch video, to end all previous much watch videos.

4 On Your Side investigates traffic stop nightmare
05/11/2013

This 4 On Your Side investigation looks into the actions of police officers and doctors in Southern New Mexico.

A review of medical records, police reports and a federal lawsuit show deputies with the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office, police officers with the City of Deming and medical professionals at the Gila Regional Medical Center made some questionable decisions.

The incident began January 2, 2013 after David Eckert finished shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming. According to a federal lawsuit, Eckert didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign coming out of the parking lot and was immediately stopped by law enforcement.

Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said in an interview with KOB that after law enforcement asked him to step out of the vehicle, he appeared to be clenching his buttocks. Law enforcement thought that was probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity. While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.

The lawsuit claims that Deming Police tried taking Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was "unethical."

But physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City agreed to perform the procedure and a few hours later, Eckert was admitted.

What Happened

While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures. A review of Eckert's medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

"If the officers in Hidalgo County and the City of Deming are seeking warrants for anal cavity searches based on how they're standing and the warrant allows doctors at the Gila Hospital of Horrors to go in and do enemas and colonoscopies without consent, then anyone can be seized and that's why the public needs to know about this," Kennedy said.

Search Warrant Concerns more

Louisiana Overhauls Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

Previous: Louisiana's Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws Opinion

Louisiana Overhaul of Discriminatory Law: Hundreds Cleared from Sex Offender List

Community groups and lawyers deal blow to the state's over 100 year-old 'Crimes Against Nature' law
Sarah Lazare
June 13, 2013

Over 700 people accused of selling or soliciting sex for money were wiped from the sex offender registry in Louisiana last night after a historic settlement to beat back the state's archaic 'Crimes Against Nature' laws.

The development marked a huge victory for sex workers, members of the LGBTQ community, poor people, and women, who disproportionately bore the brunt of a law that slapped heavy punishments on accused sex workers.

The victory came after Women with a Vision, BreakOUT!, and the Center for Constitutional Rights worked with affected communities to file a class action lawsuit.

"Yesterday when I heard, I was so excited. This was a grassroots, queer-led, effort. People were screaming for change, and they won," declared Deon Haywood, executive director of New Orleans-based Women with a Vision.

Louisiana's Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS), was created in the late 1800s to criminalize sexual devience, and today targets the selling of oral or anal sex for a fee.

Before 2011, police had full discretion over whether to charge accused sex workers with prostitution, which results in a misdemeanor, or CANS, which mandates registration as a sex offender.

Salon reports:

In practice — and particularly in New Orleans, whose police department is currently under a federal consent decree for discriminatory practices — that has meant the disproportionate charging of people of color and LGBT people for “crimes against nature.” The Department of Justice report on discrimination in the New Orleans Police Department noted that “in particular, transgender women complained that NOPD officers improperly target and arrest them for prostitution, sometimes fabricating evidence of solicitation for compensation. Moreover, transgender residents reported that officers are likelier, because of their gender identity, to charge them under the state’s ‘crimes against nature’ statute — a statute whose history reflects anti-LGBT sentiment.”

"There is a thing called guilty of walking while transgender," explained Haywood.

The Center for Constitutional Rights explains that sex offender status heavily penalizes already marginal communities.

People affected by this law have been barred from homeless shelters, physically threatened, and refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept registered sex offenders at their facilities. As in the earlier case, all plaintiffs in this action proceeded anonymously for fear of retaliation.

A federal judge last year ruled that forcing people convicted of CANS to register as sex offenders violates their constitutional rights. Yet, when hundreds remained on the registry after this federal ruling, community organizations worked with the affected community and lawyers to file the class action lawsuit that was settled last was settled last night.

Community groups explain that the victory was won by people directly affected by the law. "This case would move forward by people standing in their truth and sharing their stories," explains Deon Haywood, whose organizatin takes on issues of Sex Worker Rights, Drug Policy Reform, HIV Positive Women’s Advocacy, and Reproductive Justice outreach, according to their website.

"We did something people said we couldn't do," says Haywood. "They said we couldn't organize the population represented in this case. They said we couldn't win because of who we were. People say change doesn't happen in the south. But it just did." Common Dreams

 - - - - -

The Centre For Constitutional Rights has this, endorsing as it does, everything I said in my previous article.

In Louisiana, people accused of soliciting sex for a fee can be criminally charged in two ways: either under the prostitution statute, or under the solicitation provision of the Crime Against Nature statute. This archaic statute, adopted in 1805, outlaws “unnatural carnal copulation,” which has been defined by Louisiana courts as oral and anal (but not vaginal) sex. Police and prosecutors have unfettered discretion in choosing which to charge. But a Crime Against Nature conviction subjects people to far harsher penalties than a prostitution conviction. Most significantly, individuals convicted of a Crime Against Nature are forced to register as sex offenders.

The registry law imposes many harsh requirements that impacts every aspect of our clients’ lives. For example, they must carry a state driver’s license or non-drivers’ identification document which brands them as a sex offender in bright orange capital letters. They must disclose the fact that they are registered as a sex offender to neighbors, landlords, employers, schools, parks, community centers, and churches. Their names, address, and photographs appear on the internet.

Many of our clients have been unable to secure work or housing as a result of their registration as sex offenders. Several have been barred from homeless shelters. One has been physically threatened by neighbors. And another has been refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept sex offenders at their facilities. more

Texas: More School To Prison Pipeline

I had thought to write a few words on this latest perversion, for it can be called nothing other, this latest perversion to come out of America, specifically Texas. But it would appear that I said all that needed saying back in January last year.

What begins immediately below is just as applicable to the latest report as it was to the original, published under the same header.

Texas: How Many Kids Lives Can We Destroy Today?

I have in the past ran a similar story: Texas: Ticket The Children Not but that article didn't come anywhere near this one below, inasmuch that this story delves into the implications of the consequences of receiving a ''ticket'' or being arrested within the Texas school system.

Simply put, if the child holds his hand up in court and pleads guilty to behaving like a child, then his academic career is as good as over. To say nothing of the rest of his life being marred by a criminal conviction.

Or in the case of the very young, primary school kids, who refuse to answer charges, (because they are not legally binding) will find themselves arrested when they turn seventeen, effectively resulting in, the end of a productive life and career.

But it is the same American psyche running through this over-reaction to childhood behaviour, that runs through every walk of American society, punish, punish, punish, destroy all the lives we can. That they do so for trifles, (destroy lives) matters not one iota.

The whole society is perverted and sick, it's on par with the backward theocratic states of the middle east. In fact it's worse, it's a western industrialised nation, it should know better.

When you read on, just take note of the pettiness of some of the ridiculous things that constitute misdemeanours/felonies that are applied to these kids. Stroll on!  Just what kind of society is it that  does this to its children? link

The crux of both this and the previous article.

The complaint also adds that the problems often don’t end there. If students fail to appear in court, or if their parents can’t afford to pay fines, then the state issues an arrest warrant for them when they turn 17. Thus, these tickets “can follow students past high school into their adult lives with many of the same consequences as a criminal conviction for a more serious offense, including having to report their convictions on applications for college, the military or employment.”

In Texas, Police in Schools Criminalize 300,000 Students Each Year

The "good guy with a gun" seems to do a lot more policing than protecting.
By Steven Hsieh
April 12, 2013

In Texas, hundreds of thousands of students are winding up in court for committing very serious offenses such as cursing or farting in class. Some of these so-called dangerous criminals (also known as teenagers) will face arrest and even incarceration, like the honors student who spent a night in jail for skipping class, or the 12-year-old who was arrested for spraying perfume on her neck. These cases have at least one thing in common in that they were carried out by special police officers walking a controversial beat: the hallways and classrooms of public schools.

As political pressure from both sides of the aisle mounts to increase police presence in American schools, evidence suggests adding armed guards will only thrust more disadvantaged youth into the criminal justice system. Civil rights groups say policing our schools will further the institutionalization of what's known as the "school-to-prison pipeline."

To understand the potential consequences of putting police inside public schools, we can take a look at Texas, where students face one of the most robust school-to-prison pipelines in the country. According to the youth advocacy group Texas Appleseed, school officers issued 300,000 criminal citations to students in 2010, some handed to children as young as six years old.

As the New York Times notes, Texas Appleseed and a local NAACP chapter filed a complaint in February against a school district with a particular knack for criminalizing children, especially minorities. The complaint says Bryan Independent School District of Texas’ Brazos County, disproportionately ticketed black students for misdemeanors, potentially violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black students accounted for 46 percent of tickets issued in 2011 to 2012, despite only making up 21 percent of the student body.

Most of the criminal citations levied against students were for “Class C” misdemeanors, compelling them to miss classes in order to attend court, and often face addition disciplinary action from the district. As the complaint notes, “These students can then face sentences including fines, court costs, community service, probation and mandatory participation in ‘First Offender’ programs.”

The complaint also adds that the problems often don’t end there. If students fail to appear in court, or if their parents can’t afford to pay fines, then the state issues an arrest warrant for them when they turn 17. Thus, these tickets “can follow students past high school into their adult lives with many of the same consequences as a criminal conviction for a more serious offense, including having to report their convictions on applications for college, the military or employment.”

Advocacy groups add that many behavioral problems warranting tickets in Texas schools seem to be rather trivial for something that can lead to a criminal conviction. For example, some “Class C” misdemeanors under the state’s penal code include using profanity, making offensive gestures, creating “by chemical means” an “unreasonable odor” and “making unreasonable noise in a public place” In other words, yelling, farting, wearing Axe body spray and generally being a teenager is officially illegal in Texas.

Many commentators and several Democratic lawmakers scoffed when NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre suggested in the wake of the Newtown shooting that armed guards in schools is “the one thing that would keep people safe,” notoriously adding that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Yet, not long after LaPierre’s press conference, the White House released a plan calling for an additional 1,000 “specially trained police officers that work in schools.” And just last week, an NRA task force released a report fleshing out its proposal to put armed guards in every school. The head of that task force, former GOP Congressman Asa Hutchinson, announced his intentions to run for Arkansas Governor days after the report was released. Go to page two

Needless to say, there is much in a similar vein throughout this blog and can be found under the relative tags.

Pariahs Among Us: Sex Offender Laws in the 21st Century

Nothing I need to add really, between what I have said previously and the content, it pretty much says it all I guess.

But if the blog had a tag: How many lives can we ruin today, for no good reason, then this story would fit it to a tee.

In actual fact, - lives ruined forever - will get you a result in the search bar.

But I don't think anything is going to prepare you for that part of the article that involves Louisiana. Sick puppies is the term that first springs to mind, and I ain't talking about the offenders, I'm talking about the State.

 Pariahs among us: Sex offender laws in the 21st century

Stringent sex offender laws in the United States destroy lives and do little to mitigate repeat offences.
Charlotte Silver
14 Oct 2012

Maybe it is not so surprising that all we can think to do with a subject we are simultaneously obsessed with and repulsed by is to shout our alarm about it at every opportunity.

Sex crimes: The only kind of offence in the United States that compels all convicted perpetrators to register their name, address, date of birth, fingerprints and a photograph on a public website.

And what constitutes a sex crime? The breadth of this damning classification is alarming and includes public urination, consensual teen sex, sale of sex and exposure of genitals (including in the case of children) - as well as violent rape.

One poignant example of the irrationality and senseless devastation of overreaching sex offender laws is the story of Evan B, as told by Lara Geer Farley. When Evan was in high school he was arrested for exposing himself to a group of his female peers. A court sentenced him to four months in prison, but after he was released he was obliged to register as a sex offender. The stigma drove Evan to drop out of school, leave his home in Salina, Oklahoma and move to Tulsa, where the arduous requirements associated with his sex offender status meant that he could not maintain employment. A month before he should have turned 20, Evan shot and killed himself.

And this: A comprehensive Human Rights Watch report, published in 2007, draws attention to the common case of teenage boys aged 15, 16, 17, who have consensual sex with their teenaged girlfriends, finding themselves charged with pedophilia. They will be labelled and publicly registered as "pedophiles" for the rest of their lives.

In some states, boys as young as 10 who expose themselves to their female friends or relatives are forced to register as a "sex offender" before they understand what sex - or exposure - is.

 Outcasts

Additional laws that govern the lives of sex offenders after they are released from prison (if time is served) vary from state to state. But for all, surveillance and stringent notification guidelines are key. In addition to publicising one's status on a website, some states require registrants (the preferred moniker) to inform their neighbours, future employers, landlords, delivery men - or any other solicitor or visitor who knocks on their door - of their status as a "sex offender".

Some states require convicts to wear GPS devices, so that law enforcers can monitor their whereabouts at all time.

Louisiana requires registrants to advertise their status in large red type on their driver's licence.

Other states require periodic plethysmograph tests, in which a pressure sensitive wire is connected to the registrant's penis while being shown various sexual images. The test is designed to detect "sexual deviance".

The registrant is required to attend therapy and "behaviour modification" sessions, check in with probation officers, as well as, of course, engage the services of an attorney, none of which is cheap. Most of these costs are carried by the offender, or as is often the case, his parents.

In addition to adopting legislation that inverts the life of anyone cast as a sex offender - making him quite literally a public spectacle - hundreds of counties have established "exclusion zones". These are areas that surround various public places - parks, schools, libraries, etc - where registrants may not live, work or even walk by.

The proliferation of sex offender registration and residency restriction laws began in 1994 when the US Congress and Senate unanimously passed the Wetterling Act, which required convicted sex offenders to register their information with the state of their residence. Over the past two decades, the federal government has passed law after law that publicised the registry, tightened its stringency and perhaps most crucial, broadened its domain.

In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Act, which aimed to eliminate the inconsistencies among different states' sex offender laws. However, the ugly reality is that it expanded the "sex offences" that demanded registration and thus doomed juvenile, non-violent offenders to, potentially, a lifetime of registration. The law was easily renewed by the US House of Representatives this August - a true indicator of just how politically expedient these laws are.

Even Patty Wetterling, the woman responsible for the enactment of the Wetterling law, in 2006 lamented the direction the country had taken to handle sex offences: "People want a silver bullet that will protect their children, [but] there is no silver bullet. There is no simple cure to the very complex problem of sexual violence."

Advocates of "sex offenders" speak up

Hard evidence and reason suggest that registries and residential requirements do nothing to protect society from sexual assaults. Arguments in support of registration laws rest on a fear-based assumption that notification will protect children, but that assumption is baseless: As many as 90 per cent of sexual assault cases are conducted by family members or acquaintances. Furthermore, recidivism rates among sex offenders are under 25 per cent.

While sex offender laws provide the illusion of "security", the reality remains that rapists continue to walk free. According to statistics compiled by the US Department of Justice, 91 per cent of rapists will never be prosecuted, and only a fraction of those will be convicted or spend time in jail.

Nevertheless, these laws keep coming.

This year in Southern California, as Halloween approaches, some counties have passed ordinances banning registrants from decorating their houses with cobwebs and pumpkins, instead requiring they post a placard that notifies all passersby that there are "No candy or treats at this residence". Furthermore, registrants may have no outside lighting on October 31.

California's branch of the national coalition, Reform Sex Offender Laws, has filed a lawsuit against the ordinance on behalf of five unnamed sex offenders, as well as three of their spouses and two of their children. The suit claims the ordinance violates the plaintiffs' first amendment rights - by both forcing speech and denying their right to celebrate the holiday.

In the meantime, a San Francisco law firm has filed a case against the stringent residency restrictions placed on registrants in four counties in Southern California.

These lawsuits in California are some of the first legal challenges to the mounting set of restrictions placed on a broad class of "criminals" throughout the country.

News of lawsuits challenging punitive legislation is appearing next to headlines reporting that some states may well reject the Adam Walsh Act because they simply don't have the funds to implement its burdensome requirements (Texas estimated it would cost $38m) or are ethically opposed to legislation that would place juvenile offenders on a registry for life.

The hypocrisy of sex offender laws that allege to combat sexual crime by pouring millions into surveillance and registry programmes is reflected in the difficulty experienced by rape support centres that are struggling to merely survive.

The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV) reported in a 2012 Rape Crisis Center Survey that 67 per cent of rape crisis centres were forced to reduce the amount of hours they spend dedicated to prevention and awareness programmes; 50 per cent of programmes have eliminated staff in the past year; and 65 per cent of programmes have a waiting list for counseling services.

Sex offender laws have enabled the creation of a being - the pariah - the very notion of which is rooted in an unenlightened (and assumed by most of us to be discarded) view of humanity. A society must surely protect its vulnerable members from violence and assault. Draconian sex offender laws do not further that aim. They have simply accorded the state the power to brand an individual as undeserving of the most basic human and civil rights.

Source:

Al Jazeera

Sex laws 
Unjust and ineffective 
America has pioneered the harsh punishment of sex offenders. Does it work?

Footnote: for what it's worth, Blogger has a complete bollocks made of the HTML on this new mandatory interface. It used to be so very simple, now it's like mad woman's shit, it's all over the place.

Americans, And They Wonder Why We Laugh At Them

It's somewhat of a pity that the header of this short clip gives the game away to a certain degree.  I had rather hoped to ask you to watch the clip prior to any disclosure as to who the fellow really was.

I can still do that I'm thinking, the fact that you know he's a Pol won't detract too much I don't suppose, and let's face it, it's not as though Paul Broun is a household name outside America, or inside for that matter I shouldn't wonder.

So with no display of the header from the original article, might I ask you to watch this one minute clip first and then go to the text and enjoy that "You cannot be serious" moment.

Every American has every right to be religious. And every American has every right to make religious speech (just not in places where others are compelled to listen to it or participate in it, like public schools). And every American has the right, if they so choose, to deny reality. You can argue that aliens created human technology, Santa Claus, whatever – you have that right. . . blah blah 

Now comes the cracker and the gist of the piece.

. . . The real problem, and what frustrates me to no end, is that the Republican Party would place someone like Paul Broun, who obviously has a disdain for science and the factual reality of the world around us, to THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY! Forget the fact that he’s been married four times. Forget the fact that he’s a Conservative Evangelical. These aren’t the problem. The problem is that, based upon his fundamentalist religious convictions, he DENIES the fundamental tenets of science. Yet, despite this, the Republicans named him the CHAIR of the SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT! Go to article

Footnote: I was tempted to make the header read: Republicans And They Wonder Why We Laugh At Them but to be fair, I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats who equally fit the same bill.

The Bizarre Christian "Quiverfill" Movement

I despair, I really do, these people are beyond the pale. And I have marked the quote with an asterisk that really goes beyond the pale to border on the insane.

"What a cute arrow-maker, can I go down on it?"

"No, arrows aren't made that way!"

And yer man! he just had to be called Jim Bob didn't he, or some such.

The Bizarre Christian "Quiverfill" Movement Pushing Women to Procreate for "God's Army"

Leaders of the Quiverfull movement encourage women to have as many as 20 children, regardless of the effects on their health.
By Vyckie Garrison
August 29, 2012

During a recent interview on the Today Show, Jim Bob Duggar blurted out, "It's fun trying!" when asked if he and Michelle were actively seeking to have another baby. Today's host, Savannah Guthrie responded to the mega-dad's salacious remark with, "Jim Bob - you sly dog!"

Viewers may have come away with the impression that TLC's "19 & Counting" celebrity parents, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar hold very casual, perhaps even avant-garde attitudes regarding sex and sexuality.

But a quick look beneath the surface reveals that America's most celebrated Quiverfull couple believe and espouse decidedly unhealthy ideas when it comes to sex and babymaking.

Although Jim Bob makes frequent displays of romantic affection toward his prolific wife, Michelle, which would suggest that the couple might enjoy sex for non-procreative purposes, the "biblical family values" advocates-- whose "literal" interpretations of scripture inspire the Duggars to receive each and every pregnancy as an unmitigated blessing from God--also teach that the primary purpose of woman is to conceive and bear sons, i.e., "arrows" for God's army.

Consider Romans 1:27: "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

Quiverfull movement leader, Mary Pride, in her seminal book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism and Back to Reality, offers the following interpretation of "the natural use of the woman" ...

*Since the word used for female is connected so strongly with the idea of nursing babies, whereas it has no connection at all with the idea of sexual activity, I believe that God is saying here that when women exchange their natural function of childbearing and motherliness for that which is "against nature" (that is, trying to behave sexually like a man), the men tend to abandon the natural sexual use of the women and turn to homosexuality. (pp. 27-28)

Nancy Campbell, "editress" of Above Rubies--an international Christian women's magazine-- encourages "women in their high calling as wives, mothers, and homemakers" by explaining in her book, Be Fruitful & Multiply: What the Bible Says About Having Children, that the word "woman" is a combination of the words "womb" and "man." Woman means "womb man" or "man with a womb."

With regard to the Romans 1:27 "natural use of the woman" passage, Campbell says, "Women were created by God's design to function as nourishers by nourishing life in their womb and a babe at their breast. When women deliberately turn away from their natural functions, they do it to their own detriment." (pp. 105-107)

Sure "family values" champion, Jim Bob Duggar puts on a nice show of desiring his godly wife for more than just her ability to produce yet another arrow for his already overflowing quiver ... but Jim Bob's hermeneutics as well as his politics belie enigmatic presuppositions about the purpose of marriage, sex, and Christian wives.

Speaking in regard to Todd Akin's recent "legitimate rape" and Paul Ryan's rape as a "method of conception" remarks, Amanda Marcotte explains the fundamentalist mentality that, "the fact that someone can make a baby means that making babies is what she is for. ... Women are among an array of objects to be used. The refrigerator is for storing food. The bookshelf is for holding books. The woman is for making babies. You no more give her a choice in the matter than you would give your refrigerator veto power over what food it holds because it didn’t like your method of shopping."

Could another pregnancy be life-threatening for Michelle Duggar? Might it be risky for baby #20? Could another pregnancy leave their 19 already-born children motherless? Yes - of course! Is Jim Bob Duggar having fun trying to get his wife pregnant nevertheless? If making babies is Michelle's divine purpose - if that is why God made her ... why shouldn't her husband enjoy knocking her up one more time? It's only natural.

Jim Bob - you sly dog!

Vyckie Garrison, single mom of 7 kids, is a former adherent of the Quiverfull movement – a growing segment of Christian fundamentalist who advocate biblical patriarchy, prolific motherhood, homeschooling, courtship & betrothal, and other crazy shit like that. Garrison tells the story of how she came to embrace the extreme lifestyle and why she left at her “No Longer Quivering” blog and has created The Spiritual Abuse Survivior Blog Network. - AlterNet

Louisiana Louisiana I Despair

And I bet I'm not the only one.

I ran this story a couple of months ago, albeit in a slightly different format, but what harm running it again?

But what I didn't realise until I did a 'Louisiana' search in the search function, was just how much I had featured Louisiana in the past. I shall leave links at the bottom of the page. (Update: now tagged)

14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools
By Deanna Pan
Aug. 7, 2012

Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers' dime.

Under Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state's notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor's plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state's PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven't been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago. Blah blah

1. Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

2. Dragons were totally real: "[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007
3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994
4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel…Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."—Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004 Read on

And as always, with posts of this nature, you may wish to strap in prior to proceeding.

Louisiana Vying For Title America's Most Stupid State?

More Louisiana Lunacy: A Special Report From Loch Ness

Louisiana's Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

Justice Thomas He's a Louisiana Man

I Don't Know What Justice Looks Like But I'm Sure It Doesn't Look Like This: Waterproof Louisiana

God Bless The Louisiana Department of Corrections

Louisiana Tops Again: Shut Your Mouth Or I'll Smash Your Face In

Modern-Day Court Lynching; Jena Louisiana

Diaper Dave And The Louisiana Loonies

Gunman: 'I don't like your policies or your Chick-fil-a sandwiches'

I don't glorify violence, nor do I find it funny, but occasionally something comes along that, contrary to what I feel, does bring a bit of smile. Not least when it involves a hate group such as the Family Research Council and the shoe is on the other foot.

Floyd Lee Corkins charged with assault in shooting at Family Research Council

Gunman allegedly carried Chick-fil-A sandwiches and said 'I don't like your policies' before shooting organisation's guard
Adam Gabbatt
16 August 2012

A man has been charged with assault with intent to kill after a security guard was shot at the Washington DC offices of the Family Research Council.

Floyd Lee Corkins II, from Herndon, Virginia, was due to appear in the US district court in DC on Thursday afternoon. Corkins has also been charged with interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition.

Security guard Leonardo Reno Johnson was shot in the arm in the lobby of the conservative group's headquarters after challenging Corkins, the FBI said. Corkins, who authorities said was carrying 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, told the guard: "I don't like your politics" before firing.

The FBI affidavit released on Thursday said that Corkins was subdued by the injured Johnson after the shooting. Corkins was carrying a legally owned 9mm Sig Sauer handgun, with a backpack containing 50 additional rounds of ammunition and the 15 sandwiches.

Corkins, 28, lived with his parents and had recently been volunteering at an LGBT center in DC. His parents told FBI agents that he has "strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner", according to the affidavit.

The Family Research Council opposes gay marriage, and its president, Tom Perkins, attracted some criticism last month after emailing members suggesting they should support Chick-fil-A's stance on gay rights.

The affidavit said Corkins had parked his Dodge Neon at the East Falls Church metro station in Virginia, catching a train with his gun to DC. The assault charge carries up to 30 years in prison and the weapons charge has a 10-year maximum sentence.

Johnson, 46, was shot in the left arm and taken to hospital, where his mother, 72-year-old Virginia Johnson, said he was resting comfortably on Thursday morning. She said she had not been to visit him but had spoken to him by phone.

"He said he feels very well," she told Associated Press. "I am proud of him, very proud of him."

FRC president Tony Perkins said he visited Johnson, who had worked at the Family Research Council for over 11 years, in hospital and told him that he was a hero. "He said: 'This hero business is hard work,'" Perkins said on American Family Radio.

Perkins added that the shooting would not deter his organization from its mission. "We're not going anywhere. We're not backing up, we're not shutting up. We have been called to speak the truth," Perkins said. "We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced."

More than 20 different LGBT organisations from across the US put out a statement condemning the shooting. "We were saddened to hear news of the shooting this morning at the offices of the Family Research Council. Our hearts go out to the shooting victim, his family and his co-workers," it said.

"The motivation and circumstances behind today's tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence. We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident." Gruniad

Why Don't Scientologists Burst Out Laughing and Walk Away?

I wondered, when I dropped on this third article by Tony Ortega, if it would go some way to explaining the same question that I asked when I earlier ran two previous articles by fellow. Basically, how can people be so fucking gullible when confronted with this tripe that is at the core of Scientology? Or as Ortega asks the very same:

Why don't Scientologists, when they've been in the organization long enough to reach the legendary material in "Operating Thetan Level Three" -- the stuff about Xenu the galactic overlord which made for a great 2005 episode of South Park -- bust out laughing and walk away?

One way of answering the question, would be to take the easy way out and dismiss it as simply the stupidity and gullibility of your average Yanky. Given that around half the population of America think the Earth is less than ten thousand years old and was willed into existence by a supernatural entity, I could be forgiven for thinking this. It may well turn out to be the case, for try as I may, and reading the accounts below, and doing so in all seriousness, I'm still at a loss as to the why of it all.

Is Ortega right in downplaying: their critical reasoning skills were so eroded, they would accept anything in favour of something else, something quite simple in fact:

. . . but by the time they learned it (the Xenu story) they had already spent so much of their lives invested in Scientology, they really had no personal will to walk away -- at least at that point.

Human nature being what it is, and considering how much time and money these people had invested to reach this level of enlightenment, OT3, it is not I think, an observation without merit.

Why Do Scientologists Accept the Xenu Story?
By Tony Ortega
July 21 2012

For going on 17 years I've been writing about Scientology, and over that time there's one question that has come up again and again.

Why don't Scientologists, when they've been in the organization long enough to reach the legendary material in "Operating Thetan Level Three" -- the stuff about Xenu the galactic overlord which made for a great 2005 episode of South Park -- bust out laughing and walk away?

Tom Cruise and John Travolta and thousands of other Scientologists have moved on beyond the space opera stuff in OT 3 (Cruise, for example, has moved up to OT 7), and for some reason, they accepted the Xenu story and never looked back.

When I've been asked that question, I had a ready answer that I'd put together after talking to many ex-Scientologists who told me their own experiences.

But now, I realize that the answer I was giving was wrong. The reason why Scientologists accept the story about Xenu and disembodied alien beings infesting this Earth is actually much simpler, and much more mindblowing, than I ever realized.

In the past, Scientologists had convinced me that their long, gradual indoctrination was so insidious, by the time they were allowed to read L. Ron Hubbard's strange OT 3 story -- which has a galactic overlord solving an overpopulation problem by bringing billions of disembodied alien souls to this planet 75 million years ago -- their critical reasoning skills were so eroded, they would accept anything.

I remember Jason Beghe, for example, telling me that other religions have their angels and demons, so was a story about alien spirits from another solar system really all that harder to believe? I could see what he was saying, but after spending so much money and time -- hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years of dedication to reach OT 3 -- wasn't it a shock for Scientologists to learn that this was what their religion is really all about?

Some ex-church members I met did admit that they had negative reactions to the Xenu story, but by the time they learned it they had already spent so much of their lives invested in Scientology, they really had no personal will to walk away -- at least at that point.

But then, recently, I had a new realization about what church members go through before they get to OT 3.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed a man named Dani Lemberger, and he made me understand the "whole track" and auditing better than anyone else had before. (In auditing -- Scientology's spiritual counseling -- a subject holds onto the sensors of an e-meter while an auditor asks questions prescribed by Hubbard, encouraging the subject to remember events earlier and earlier. The purpose is to remember and then disarm traumatic memories that happened in your past lives, and helps you move toward becoming "clear." As you do so, you gain a view down your entire "whole track" of existence as an immortal spirit, called a "thetan.")

For my story about Dani and the mission in Israel that is splitting away from the official church, I interviewed Lemberger for hours and sat, mesmerized, as he told me about his whole track auditing, during which he saw himself millions of years ago, leading groups during different lifetimes and on other planets. Over the eons, he said, he had lived lifetimes during which he had a tendency to get his head chopped off when his people rebelled.

Dani was serious. (And he's also a successful businessman with an MBA who characterizes himself as a "skeptic.")

Lemberger made me realize something very basic about Scientology that, for some reason, had never really sunk in before. And it is this...

The reason Scientologists accept Hubbard's bizarre story about Xenu is that by the time they reach OT 3, they have been "remembering" their own outlandish space opera "whole track" stories during auditing, perhaps for several years.

Why question Hubbard's tale about mass alien genocide 75 million years ago, when you've been "seeing" yourself as some kind of Buck Rogers fighting enemies and bedding beauties from one end of the galaxy to the other?

With this new realization, I went back to some of my ex-Scientology sources to put it to them: had they been holding out on me a little about their own Star Wars-like adventures?

Several of them admitted that yes, even ex-Scientologists long out of the church can be somewhat reluctant to discuss the wild things they "remembered" about their past during auditing. But I pressed them -- tell me about your adventures from millennia past.

"I blew up a water dam that destroyed a third of the cities that were downriver of it. That would be about 300 million years ago -- but you would say something like '346,767,813 years ago' to your auditor. I think it was on some planet that started with the letter 'V'," says Chuck Beatty, and he laughs, knowing how ridiculous it sounds.

Even after I had explained what I was asking, it took me some while to pry that answer out of Chuck, who is, just about anyone will tell you, the most forthcoming and talkative source of information on Scientology in the world.

Tiziano Lugli was the same way. He spoke to me at length about his own auditing and the entire progression of the OT levels. But I had to keep pushing him until he finally coughed up one of his whole track events...

"It was 250,000 years ago, in a space ship, and I'd gathered all these people from these planets, and I'm implanting them with mental pictures and then throwing them down to the earth, a prison planet," Lugli said. "I was the guy in charge, and I'm responsible for this prison planet. The feeling of that responsibility and what I went through freaked me out for a year."

And that's really the purpose of "remembering" such material -- Scientologists believe that if they can recall and "handle" things that happened to them eons ago, it will solve whatever problems they have going on in their current lives.

"At the end of a session you feel invincible," Lugli says. "You've been having planets built and destroyed. After that, you come out into this normal world and you feel like the most powerful person around because you've been traveling through space and time."

Marc Headley pointed out that if you're having those kinds of experiences, Hubbard's story about a galactic overlord is just not very surprising.

"OK, so there's a galactic overlord named Xenu. Big deal. That's not the craziest thing you're going to hear on your way to spending three hundred thousand dollars," he says, referring to the ballpark figure for what it takes to get through the years of services to get to OT 3. At the upper levels, such counseling reaches about a thousand dollars an hour.

But during their journey to OT 3, not everyone has such outlandish "memories," they all pointed out to me.

Amy Scobee, for example, told me a pretty mundane story about seeing herself in a scene from about two centuries ago (which, even though it was rather tame, she asked me not to share). Other memories she worked with were almost contemporary.

She just didn't have wild space opera experiences the way some others did. So when she she reached OT 3, I asked her, how did it hit her?

"I did wonder if it was true," she says. But when she then ran the auditing routines involved in the level, the e-meter's needle seemed to indicate that what the material proposed -- that disembodied alien souls were hovering around her -- seemed to be confirmed. "It's weird. I don't know what to say. I didn't feel like I went through that incident, but the needle was going wild, so I had to assume that someone had."

I also called Jefferson Hawkins, who I've always considered one of the smartest, most level-headed of the ex-Scientologists who speak out about their experiences. He laughed as soon as I explained why I was calling.

"I ran a lot of that stuff, as anybody does, and people don't want to talk about it because it's kind of silly when you get out. But when you're in it's very real," he says.

And Jeff's "whole track" auditing memory? "I was a navigator on a space ship, and it had this very complex navigation system that I was in charge of and I could describe it in great detail," he says. "It was just very vivid. I could see the equipment and could describe it."

He points out that Hubbard had suggested these kinds of stories in his books and lectures, talking about waves of "invader forces" that had colonized the solar system.

"As a kid I was a real science fiction fan. And the idea that this stuff had actually occurred millions of years ago -- it was crazy, but in a good way," he says.

So these Scientologists, in their auditing sessions, were "remembering" pretty mindblowing stuff. But there was a catch -- they weren't supposed to tell other church members about it.

Lugli describes the scene to me: "You would go to the restaurant at the Sandcastle Hotel in Flag [Scientology's spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida], and everyone is out of session, saying things like, 'Wow, this really blew me away! I've never handled more charge in one session!' But you can't actually say what happened," he says.

However, people would violate the rules and spill secrets about their past lives, they tell me. Some folks just couldn't help themselves.

"It was a status thing," Hawkins explains. "I knew probably four or five Scientologists who told me confidentially that they were Jesus."

And in the 1980s, he remembers, "there was this fad for a while that people were all remembering that they were Nazis in World War II, and that's why things were so screwed up in their present lives," Hawkins says. "That's why they had to be so active in Scientology, to atone for what they had done in past lives."

I also pointed out to Jeff that there seemed to be another status thing going on -- the better Scientologist you were, the farther back in your whole track you could go, retrieve incidents, and handle them. Hubbard himself seemed to promote this idea, that if his followers could travel back hundreds of millions of years, he was so advanced he was going back trillions of years. (Astronomers tell us the universe itself is only about 14 billion years old, but that didn't stop Hubbard.)

Hubbard claimed that he'd visited Heaven 43 trillion years ago and then a trillion years later. And, as we pointed out (and Beatty gave us credit for being the first ever to do so), when Hubbard died, Pat Broeker showed a number with 347 digits on it to the audience when it was announced that Hubbard had merely left his body in order to continue his research on another plane.

That number, Broeker told the audience, represented in years the farthest back in his whole track that Hubbard had been able to go at the end of his life.

We did the math, and here's what that number represented...

24 billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years.

That's some time travel!

So you see, 75 million years ago is not really such a big deal, and Xenu and his alien overpopulation problem isn't going to scare off your average spacefaring Scientologist.

Someday, I'd love to hear Tom Cruise's whole track tales. They must be something. Update and two short clips

Again in all seriousness, I have upped this now infamous video of Tom Cruise, not to take the piss, which would be too easy, but to actually study someone who is so far off the wall, it's something to behold.

Scientology: More Contempt

Contempt for anyone so gullible as to swallow this nonsense, brainwashed or not. And a brief word below concerning the IRS.

. . . . And that’s when Wollersheim learned the secrets of OT III.

Hubbard claimed that he had nearly paid with his life learning the revelations of OT III, the third level of materials that Scientologists must master after going clear and becoming an “operating thetan,” or OT. The information in OT III was so explosive, Hubbard said, he believed its secrets must have been designed to kill anyone who discovered it. The danger those secrets posed to the uninitiated was one of the ways Scientologists justified not telling newer members about them. (Today they are available on the Internet for perusal, if you know where to look. This reporter suffered no ill effects from reading them.) Former members say that today the typical Scientologist must spend several years and about $100,000 in auditing before they find out on OT III that they are filled with alien souls that must be removed by further, even more expensive auditing.

“OT III totally shatters the core sense of identity. The central concept of mind control is attacking the core personality, the threat that you are not who you think you are. At OT III, you find out that you’re really thousands of individual beings struggling for control of your body. Aliens left over from space wars that are giving you cancer or making you crazy or making you impotent. The reason for every bad thing in your life is these alien beings,” Wollersheim says. “I went psychotic on OT III. I lost a sense of who I was.”

Years can be spent removing these aliens—called “body thetans” or “BT’s”—by talking to and about these supposed hitchhiking entities while holding onto a device called an “e-meter.” “You’re talking to thousands of beings. They have histories. And anger. They’re complex personalities. I started drinking heavily to drown out the voices. I was non-functional, irrational, filthy. I wandered the streets of L.A. for three days. Finally I came enough to my senses to get in touch with Scientologists I knew.” He was cleaned up and calmed down, but Wollersheim was told that the solution to his troubles was just more auditing.

It would appear the IRS resisted Scientology for years over granting it tax free status, but in the end, and hard as it may be to believe, Scientology just wore out the IRS and they subsequently folded on the issue.

. . . . . Hubbard organized Scientology as a religion in 1954. But in 1967, it was stripped of its tax exempt status by the IRS. For the next 25 years, the U.S. government repeatedly turned down Scientology’s appeals to regain its exemption on the grounds that Scientology was not so much a religion as a money-making venture benefiting one man, Hubbard.

Scientology retaliated in an extraordinary way. With Hubbard’s knowledge and direction, agents of his intelligence unit, the Guardian’s Office, began infiltrating IRS and other government offices in the mid 1970s. Dubbed Operation Snow White by Hubbard, the illegal operation netted stolen government documents by the yard, and went undiscovered until a 1977 raid of Scientology offices by the FBI. Eleven Scientologists, including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue, were sentenced to prison. Hubbard himself was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

Scientology subsequently disbanded the Guardian’s Office, claiming that it was a rogue outfit. But its war with the IRS did not stop.

Even after Hubbard’s death in 1986, the IRS continued to deny the organization tax-exempt status, and Scientology fought back by siccing personal investigators on individual IRS employees and filing more than 2,000 separate lawsuits against the agency.

Despite the harassment, however, the IRS continued to win victories against Scientology in court. In 1992, A United States Claims Court upheld the IRS denial, citing “the commercial character of much of Scientology” and its “scripturally based hostility to taxation.” Tax exempt organizations, the claims court wrote, “simply do not exhibit the financial complexity or the phenomenal preoccupation with money displayed by Scientology’s management churches and organizers.”

By then, however, the IRS had already, secretly, caved. In 1991, under the first George Bush presidency, the IRS had reversed itself and began a process that wasn’t made public until 1993, under the Clinton administration, when the IRS revealed that it was giving nearly every Scientology entity the tax exempt status it coveted.

It was a stunning turnaround and one that, [more than] a decade later, still has tax experts shaking their heads. Article proper: Scientology's Crushing Defeat

Full list of articles by Tony Ortega

Previous: Scientology: Contempt Contempt Contempt

Scientology: Contempt Contempt Contempt

Contempt for any such organisation as sinister as the Church of Scientology, not to mention contempt for short arsed megalomaniacs who by comparison make the term Napoleon Complex seem almost benign.

Contempt for the United States of America, the FBI and the IRS, who not only allow such a cult to flourish unhindered, but recognise Scientology as a religion and bestow on it tax free status.

Contempt for anyone dumb enough, shallow enough or pathetic enough, to walk through the portals of, and embrace any organisation, that were it not so sinister, should be laughed and ridiculed out of existence, the brain-child of a third rate science fiction writer, L Ron Hubbard and his Church of Scientology.

Only in America! Only in America!! You better fucking believe it.

The only thing more I have to say is, after you have read the first account, an account the plot of which, wouldn't do justice to a bad B movie, simply because it's too unbelievable, please read part two, which has all the basics required for a half decent novel thriller.

For myself right now, I'm going to open a few more links and continue reading what at best can be described as bizarre, and at worst, a good deal more than sinister.

Scientology's Concentration Camp for Its Executives: The Prisoners, Past and Present
By Tony Ortega
Aug. 2 2012

This weekend, we published a two-part story about the rather amazing 32-year Scientology career of John Brousseau, whose adventures included driving for L. Ron Hubbard, spending time in the Sea Org's prison program the RPF, and working in the Cruise household with Tom and Katie Holmes.

What seemed to generate the most comments, however, was Brousseau's involvement in the creation of Scientology's notorious office-prison for its top executives, variably known as "CMO Int," the "A to E Room," the "SP Hole," and simply "The Hole."

It was Brousseau who was ordered to put bars on the doors and locks on the windows to turn a set of offices at Scientology's International Base east of Los Angeles into a prison that housed out-of-favor church executives from 2004 to the present day.

But over that time, Brousseau tells us, the conditions of The Hole changed, and so did the roster of people kept inside. After the jump, what we know about the place, and a list of people who spent at least some time there.

As Brousseau explained, it was after Scientology finally got out from under the Lisa McPherson wrongful death lawsuit with a settlement in 2004 that church leader David Miscavige's attention seemed to turn inward.

Suddenly, he says, Miscavige directed an unending fury at his own top executives, some of his most loyal and longest-serving officials in international management. And in 2004, he rounded up about 50 of these Sea Org members, locked them in a room, and then confined them to another building for three days. He then asked Brousseau to secure the CMO Int offices, and then the next day moved the executives down to it.

The Hole was born.

Harrowing accounts of what occurred in The Hole turned up in a 2009 investigation by Joe Childs and Tom Tobin of the Tampa Bay Times, in Marc Headley's 2009 book Blown for Good, and in Janet Reitman's 2011 history of the church, Inside Scientology.

Then, this year, we heard from two additional sources about conditions in The Hole -- Debbie Cook's dramatic court testimony this February in San Antonio, and Mike Rinder's Voice video interview in March. (At Cook's hearing in February, the church put out a statement denying that The Hole exists. But the attorney who uttered that denial was not, as Cook, under oath in a court of law. He's also outnumbered by numerous former Scientologists who have spoken about the church's concentration camp with utter consistency.)

Rinder estimates that he spent a total of about two years in the Hole -- first in 2004 as it was beginning, and then later in 2006-2007.

Debbie Cook was in for only 7 weeks in 2007, but her experience was brutal. She testified that Miscavige had two hulking guards climb into her office through a window as she was talking to him on the phone. "Goodbye" he told her as she was hauled off to the gulag. Like Rinder, she described a place where dozens of men and women were confined to what had been a set of offices. Cook testified that the place was ant-infested, and during one two-week stretch in the summer with temperatures over 100 degrees, Miscavige had the air conditioning turned off as punishment. Food was brought up in a vat riding on a golf cart. Cook described it as a barely edible "slop" that was fed to them morning, noon, and night. Longtime residents of the Hole began to look gaunt.

They had to find places on the floor or on desks to sleep at night. Rinder said there were so many of them they slept only inches from each other, and having to get up in the middle of the night was a nightmare of stepping over sleeping figures in the dark.

In the morning, they were marched out of the offices and through a tunnel under Gilman Springs Road to a large building with communal showers. They were then marched back to the Hole, and during the day would be compelled to take part in mass confessions.

During these, Rinder says people he had considered friends would put on a show for the officials overseeing them, trying to outdo each other with vile accusations against each other. Cook testified that Miscavige wanted Marc Yager and Guillaume Lesevre, two of his longest-serving and highest-ranking officials, to confess to having a homosexual affair. The men were beaten until they made some forced admissions. When Cook objected to what was happening, she herself was made to stand in a trash can for twelve hours while insults were hurled at her, she was called a lesbian, and water was dumped on her head.

She testified that she saw one man, Mark Ginge Nelson, beaten and then made to lick a bathroom floor for half an hour. [Note: Cook testified that she witnessed this punishment at a Scientology location in Los Angeles, not in the Hole. Nelson, she testified, received this punishment for daring to object to the way executives were being locked up in the Hole.]

Rinder and Cook both eventually got out of the Hole in 2007 when Miscavige needed them on projects elsewhere. But others have reportedly spent five to seven years locked up in the Hole.

In more recent years, however, conditions have improved, Brousseau tells me.

"'The Truth Rundown' caused conditions to get better," Brousseau says. The landmark 2009 Tampa Bay Times series featured several former executives accusing Miscavige of assaulting them and creating an environment of violence and incarceration. (The church vehemently denied the accusations.)

Brousseau says the publicity had an immediate effect.

"The mandate was to change the Hole's appearance," he says.

Over a two-week period, changes were made that were still in place when Brousseau left the base in 2010. (Through an intermediary, we've heard from Roanne Horwich, who left the base just a few months ago, that the changes are still in place.)

At night, the prisoners of the Hole were now allowed to sleep in actual beds, in one of several buildings on the south side of Gilman Springs Road which are collectively known as "Berthing."

Brousseau was never held in the Hole, but he observed the prisoners often and describes their day:

"They slept in Berthing. They got up, showered, then went to the dining hall at 9:30. They had 30 minutes for breakfast," he says. (No more bringing them a vat of slop on the back of a golf cart.)

"Then they walked up to the Hole. They sat down at desks. I have no clue what work they did," he says. "They worked until 12:30 or 1 pm. Then they were marched back to the dining hall and had 30 minutes for lunch. Then they were marched back to the Hole and were there until 6 pm."

The executives were then marched to the dining hall for a 30-minute dinner.

"Then they went up to the study hall. In the Qual building, the one with the big circular stained glass window," he says. More

Related and full of bizarre goings on: Mimi Faust's Mother, Olaiya Odufunke: Her Life in Scientology's Secret Service Maybe more links to come after more reading.

Full list of articles by Tony Ortega

American Family Association: Churches Supporting Gays Caused Colorado Massacre

American Family Association: Churches Supporting Gays Caused Colorado Massacre
July 21, 2012

Fred Jackson, the news director for the American Family Association (AFA), yesterday blamed the Colorado massacre that took twelve lives and wounded another 58 people on mainline Churches supporting gay people. Jackson, who echoed sentiments of the AFA’s Bryan Fischer by blaming the ACLU, also blamed liberals — liberal churches and liberal media — along with movies and the Internet, and an overall lack of the fear of God, for the tragic shooting. More

The American Family Association is a certified anti-gay hate group.

The Right To Bear Arms and Shoot Lots of People

The post below, written in response to the Tucson shooting, is a partial re-up. To put the thing in its proper perspective, below are a few lines of the report that I responded to. Albeit in my usual semi-irreverent way. Deservedly so I think, reverence and insanity being the poor bed fellows that they are.

Two Unasked Questions in Tucson Mass Murder

Serious Guns and White Terrorism

Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy such a serious weapon? Article

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Originally posted under the title: Tom DeLays Going to Jail and Other Tales From The Gulag

Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy such a serious weapon?.........




........The federal background check for people purchasing such weapons only prohibits selling such weapons to people who have been legally determined to be mentally defective or found insane or convicted of crimes. This man had not been found legally mentally defective or convicted, so he was legally entitled to purchase an assault weapon. In Arizona, he was legally entitled to carry the weapon in a concealed manner..........

..........The US has well over 250 million guns in private hands according to the National Rifle Association. That is more, according to the BBC, than any country in the world. In one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada and 9,484 in the United States according to the Brady Campaign.

Answers, take your pick: America has a hard on for guns. He lives in America. America is full of inadequates. America has no cultural history other than a violent one. The Second Amendment ain't all its cracked up to be. America has Fox News. Fox News is full of right wing nutjobs, see article below. America is full of right wing nutjobs, see Tiller the Killer link below. America has a hard on for guns. more

The right to bear arms

Big gun, small dick

I don't know when it will be this fellows turn to make the news, but I will guarantee one thing, it will be before he gets laid. Mad as a fucking brush! and twice as inadequate.

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Fox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies

Bill O'Reilly's recent "joke" about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview.

During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated:

And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.

A week before Trotta's "joke," Republican primary candidate Mike Huckabee was apologizing for his own Obama assassination quip. Addressing a gathering of the National Rifle Association, Huckabee joked that a loud thud heard backstage during his address was Barack Obama diving to the floor to avoid gun shots. Months later, Huckabee was given his own Fox News show.

With its biggest new star, Glenn Beck, Fox News hired a host well-known for on-air death fantasies--for instance, chattering about killing filmmaker Michael Moore with his bare hands and hoping out loud that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) would burn to death. In a Fox News skit in September 2009, Beck portrayed himself poisoning Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It's a culture that apparently filters down to Fox News viewers and supporters. Over the years Fox Nation, the Fox News "owned and operated" fan website, has regularly featured comments expressing the desire to see Barack Obama's assassinated. more

Previous: "..after the slaying of Tiller the Killer" Now posted immediately below this post.

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The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far RightWilliam Rivers Pitt

......At the time of this writing, Rep. Giffords is lying in a hospital bed in critical condition. The God you Bible-spewing frauds love to flog the rest of us with must have been in that supermarket crowd with her on Saturday, with His hand on her shoulder, because it is nothing short of a full-fledged miracle she survived at all. Doctors are actually cautiously optimistic that she will survive, though the degree to which she will ultimately recover is still sorely in doubt. She can respond to simple commands, according to her doctors, and is marginally able to communicate. If she survives her wound, it is wretchedly certain her life will never, ever be the same.

I just thought you should know a few things about the people you helped into their graves and hospital beds this weekend.

Yes, you.

You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.

You who worship Jesus at the top of your lungs (in defiance of Christ's own teachings on the matter of worship, by the way) helped put several churchgoers into their graves and into the hospital. You who shriek about the sanctity of marriage helped cut down a man who was about to be married. You who crow with ceaseless abandon about military service and the nobility of our fighting forces helped to critically wound the wife of a Naval aviator who fought for you in a war. You who hold September 11 as your sword and shield helped put a little girl born on that day into the ground.

You helped. Yes, damn you, you helped. more

But for the icing on the cake, I pray beg you, read the few comments at the original post.

Footnote: Not only do Americans not do irony very well, they do seem to have a similar problem with symbolism. And for a fellow, me, that has put a budget that would be the envy of many a small nation down the barrel of skeet and trap guns, I do know a little about guns.

Previous and a interesting read: Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason

The (US) Photo Galleries of Volker Dierks

Awesome I tell you, awesome, and in the truest meaning of the word.

I stumbled upon the photo galleries of Herr Volker Dierks' travels in America. Check out his posts tagged North America Travels for a remarkable visual feast.

eta: Or simply go to these links, where each thumbnail opens an album. USA 2007 - USA 2008

What I did find unavoidable though, was to consider the supreme irony, that of a single country that boasts both the Grand Canyon and Creationism.

eta: But for something really shameful, please read below the fold.







If ever a turn of phrase needed preserving, it has to be this, uttered by former Colorado River guide, Tom Vail. Not only should it be preserved, it should be etched in stone and given a prominent place in every educational institution throughout America.

Just as the fundamentalists want the Ten Commandments displayed in public buildings, Roy and His Rock, then so should this, as a dire warning to what can happen to reason and understanding, when people get God.

Then I met the Lord. Now, I have "a different view"

For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now, I have "a different view" of the Canyon, which, according to a biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than about a few thousand years old. Come and view the Grand Canyon with 23 creation scientists and theologians from around the world. This 10" X 8", 104 page hard cover book is filled with informative essays and stunning photos, many by Canyon guide Charly Heavenrich. Grand Canyon, a different view will take your breath away, stimulate your imagination and presents the facts about the Grand Canyon from a Biblical perspective. Though educational enough for a home school book, it is equally beautiful as a gift or coffee table book.

Though educational enough for a home school book What more do you need to be told about home schooling than that little gem? If you only watch one clip, watch the first one. All You Ever Wanted To Know About Child Abuse


And to the powers that be at the Grand Canyon National Park Service, those that allowed this travesty of a book to go on sale in the park's tourist shop, I would sack the fucking lot of you. It would be, Oi! you, get your kit packed and fuck right off, you're fucking sacked.

Reams of stuff here on Vail's book and the Grand Canyon National Park Service.